El Ten Eleven

El Ten Eleven started as a duo in 2002 in Silverlake and have released six solely instrumental LPs to date using unique gear such as guitar/bass doublenecks, fretless bass, looping pedals and both electronic and acoustic drums.

“It’s almost like our looping pedals themselves are instruments we’ve had to master,” bass player/composer Kristian Dunn explains. “I’ll loop Tim’s electronic drums with one of my pedals while looping my own bassline, then switch to my six string bass mid-song while he moves to playing acoustic drums, layering up the sonics and shaping the song as it all grows.”

By refusing to use anything pre-recorded live they’ve pushed themselves into new territory, now able to deftly recreate their complex compositions nightly.

After 15 years together they’ve attained hard-won virtuosity with the devices and can now concentrate on songwriting itself rather than logistics. “Almost nothing we do is improvised live,” says Dunn. “When we first started playing shows we’d sometimes run into trouble with the loops and have to stop mid-song and try again!”

El Ten Eleven released their sixth full length album Fast Forward in 2015, and will release their first-ever vocal collaboration EP titled Unusable Love featuring Emile Mosseri on August 18. Preorders are available now. You can listen to the title track on all digital platforms.